


Meitantei no Kamen

by beaubete



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Yes Really, magical girl au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That one where John is the premiere fan blogger for the Masked Detective.  Loosely inspired by Sailor Moon and several other mid-90s magical girl anime, and vaguely brought about by night blogging, staying up entirely too late with a crowd of incredible people, and a pinch of just plain wanting to watch the world burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meitantei no Kamen

**Author's Note:**

> For the Butt Brigade, you fantastic creatures, and especially Jennally, for inspiring me with her art.

“— _and so, after a tremendous battle with the giant rat, the Masked Detective has once again saved the day. And I don’t know about you, but it makes this blogger comfortable to know that, at least here in London, there are three constants in life: rain, traffic, and our very own masked superhero protecting our streets._ ” John hit the last key with a flourish; Sherlock glanced at him over the newspaper with a sour expression.

“Obsessing over the Masked Detective again, John?” he asked, expression droll. John flushed.

“I operate the premiere fan blog about the Masked Detective, Sherlock. I have a duty to report about his cases—I wouldn’t expect you to understand responsibility,” John sniped. He closed the laptop with a decisive snick and stood, stretching out his vertebrae until the tiny pops stopped crackling along his spine. “Oof. Maybe I should have taken a break, though. Four hours to type this one up and another two for research—”

“And how many times did you rewatch the news footage?” Sherlock accused. As if he actually cared.

“Only four,” John said defensively.

“Only.”

“You dissolve human hands in vats of acid in the refrigerator and I’m the odd one for being interested in the masked superhero that saved my life,” John summed up.

“I’m sure you were no more than a casualty averted to him,” Sherlock said, turning back to the paper. John froze, a little hurt.

“Well, I guess I’ll never know, will I? It’s not like I’ve been able to chat with him since.”

“Placing yourself in danger to see him is not going to endear you to him,” Sherlock called loftily.

“I don’t—that’s not,” John spluttered. Sherlock hummed in agreement.

“Of course not.”

“I’m going to go get some more milk. I noticed the last carton had something in it,” John said pointedly.

“Oh yes. You wanted me to warn you about experiments: lactic acid and milk sugars and the effect on decomposition of human eyeballs. Warning.”

“I did rather want those warnings beforehand,” John said. He sighed. “At the very least taped to the outside of the package next time?”

“If I remember.”

“Do try.”

The walk to the corner shop would have been shorter, but Sherlock had done something embarrassing there that led to a lifetime ban for the both of them; John spent the walk to the nearest store he could show his face in thinking about his obnoxious roommate and his apparent hatred for the Masked Detective. Sherlock was always railing against the Masked Detective—his costume was silly, he focused more on silly, commercial cases, he seemed more interested in mugging for the camera. That hat. Sherlock complained a lot about the Masked Detective’s hat.

He was musing about that hat as he contemplated the dairy case. He was torn—a larger jug of milk would be more affordable in the long run, but a smaller bottle would be less likely to be tampered with before it could be consumed. It was a matter of how long it would take Sherlock to repurpose the groceries, really, and there was no real way of guess—he tripped over her as he turned, adding the smaller bottle to his basket.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” John said, catching at her before she could hit her head on the display of Weetabix behind.

“No worries,” the woman replied, smiling. There was something familiar about her, comforting and warm. John smiled back, and that’s how he met Susan.

Even from the first, they were inseparable. She was as fascinated by the Masked Detective as he was, and she’d actually squealed when he showed her his blog. It was all very flattering; Sherlock hated her. His comments about her bland, oatmeal personality had caused their first real argument since John had moved in—Sherlock retreating to his room and for once forfeiting the argument with a huff and a dramatic flare of his dressing gown.

John was thirty minutes into his favorite guilty pleasure action flick when he got the text. It was brief: _please john I am at the park come quick_ —he’d panicked, not even shouting a warning to Sherlock as he’d rushed out the door. Susan had never been one to send many texts, said she didn’t have the thumbs for it, but the message had his heart beating in his throat. He didn’t think about not showing up. It wasn’t an option.

When he got there, Susan was—

Susan was…fine. She was standing by the park bench. John’s brow knit and he opened his mouth to ask, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand, ropes coming up to snarl around him. The ropes were flexible, soft, familiar; he struggled, confused, until he recognized the weave surrounding him.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, glaring at the arms of a very familiar jumper knotted around him.

“Language, Doctor Watson,” Susan said. Her skin had turned a creamy, pale brown, cable patterns creeping across until she looked knitted together. Thick, chunky joins connected her arms and legs to her amorphous body like seams on a jumper.

“What are you going to do to me?” John demanded. “I’m nobody important. Why me?”

“On the contrary, my dear Doctor,” Susan said, taunting. “You’ve managed to get quite close to someone I’d like to meet—”

“The Masked Detective!” came the cry from the crowd that was starting to form around them; beyond the park, pedestrians passed by with barely a glance. Another villain committing acts of bondage while a gorgeous man in a glowing deerstalker and domino leapt out of trees? Business as usual in London. John stared at the superhero.

“That’s right! Wherever there’s a mystery to be solved in the name of true justice, I am the Masked Detective! There are no secrets here!”

John flushed. This was definitely the way he’d wanted to see the Masked Detective again—tied up at the mercy of a cableknit villain he’d thought he was going to be shagging soon. The Masked Detective didn’t even spare him a glance as he threw his hat at the yarn; Susan pulled back with a yelp and the binding around John’s arms loosened suddenly, just the arms of his jumper again. He winced. It was going to be unwearable.

“That’s just about enough out of you!” the Masked Detective called dramatically, extending his long fingers to point at Susan. “It’s time for you to go back to the laundry—you’re all washed up!”

Afterward, dazzled by the rainbow lights and glitter, John couldn’t say exactly what happened. He’d seen the skull, the Masked Detective’s totem that occasionally gave him advice and offered sassy commentary, and watched in awe as it folded its jaw down, releasing something that looked a little like a harpoon gun that the Masked Detective had swirled and spun before discharging the harpoon in Susan’s direction. Susan had screamed, a shrill, blood-curdling screech that still hung on the air; when the dots faded from his vision, John’s favorite jumper was again just a jumper, muddy and dirty and raveling where the sleeves had been cut off and a huge hole had appeared in the body. There wasn’t enough to save, though he took it from the Masked Detective gingerly when offered.

“How did you know it was mine?” John asked him, frowning down at the jumper that had been his favorite, until the Masked Detective tipped his chin up. The Masked Detective’s smile was wry, familiar and warm the way Susan had always felt but real in a way she hadn’t.

“An obvious deduction: she was important to you,” the Masked Detective said.

“You deduced me?” John asked. His breath caught at the glimmer of the Masked Detective’s eyes behind his mask. “Why? I’m nobody important.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, John. You’re fascinating.” The Masked Detective’s smile wavered and he leaned in, pressing a tentative kiss to the corner of John’s mouth. “I can’t help but notice you.”

John stared. The Masked Detective smiled again, and he looked about to say something when the sound of sirens began to encroach on their private space. “You’d better go,” John said finally, and with a brusque nod, the Masked Detective did. John grinned to himself, clutching the remnants of his favorite jumper to his chest; this was going to make one hell of a blog post when he got home. And if he didn’t mention it to Sherlock so that the man’s scathing commentary wouldn’t tarnish the magical glow of this moment, well. All the better.


End file.
